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In today’s day and age, terrorism is not merely enabled by ideology and technology but also most effectively by an epistemic strategy that sacralises the ideological lineaments of the terrorists’ main creed.
A concrete indication of this trend is the Taliban government’s use of sophisticated strategic communication tools through epistemic proxies like the Al Mirsaad, a web-based publication funded and directed by Taliban regime’s General Directorate of Intelligence’s media wing.
Recently, the Al Mirsaad’s credentials as a Taliban mouthpiece were exposed by a report, “Heretics, Adversaries, & Legitimacy” by the Durand Despatch, an independent digital news organisation that specialises in security and counter-terrorism affairs in Afghanistan and South Asia.
The analysis of the Al Mirsaad’s 137 articles, published between October 2025 and March 2026, identified a pattern of deification of the internationally isolated and delegitimised Taliban regime.
